Languages

Language exporters turn a Specta type collection into source code or a schema. Install the exporter separately from specta and pass a format that matches your serializer.

TypeScriptCopy Anchor Link

Install the versions in the getting started guide, then export your registered types:

use specta::{Type, Types};
use specta_typescript::{Layout, Typescript};

#[derive(Type)]
struct User {
    id: u32,
    name: String,
}

let types = Types::default().register::<User>();
Typescript::default()
    .layout(Layout::FlatFile)
    .export_to("./bindings.ts", &types, specta_serde::Format)?;

Use .export(&types, specta_serde::Format) to return a String instead of writing a file.

Output layoutsCopy Anchor Link

With Layout::Files, pass a directory to export_to. The string-returning export method does not support that layout.

Use .header("/* eslint-disable */") to add a file header. Configure your formatter to ignore generated files if it would otherwise rewrite them.

JavaScript with JSDocCopy Anchor Link

JSDoc is part of specta-typescript. It writes JavaScript with type annotations for editors and JavaScript type checking.

use specta_typescript::JSDoc;

JSDoc::default().export_to(
    "./bindings.js",
    &types,
    specta_serde::Format,
)?;

Use the same Types collection as in the TypeScript example. JSDoc does not support the Namespaces layout.

SwiftCopy Anchor Link

Add specta-swift alongside specta and specta-serde:

cargo add specta-swift@0.0.5

use specta_swift::Swift;

Swift::default().export_to(
    "./Types.swift",
    &types,
    specta_serde::Format,
)?;

See the Swift API reference for naming, indentation, optional, and generic settings. Test the generated code against the encoding and decoding rules used by your Swift client.

Schema and other exportersCopy Anchor Link

The Specta workspace also contains exporters for OpenAPI, JSON Schema, Go, Java, Kotlin, Zod, and Valibot. Their coverage and release status differ. Read each crate's documentation before choosing it for an application.

specta-openapi exports reusable schemas and supports describing operations. Exporting a collection of data types alone does not discover your HTTP routes.

Check compatibilityCopy Anchor Link

Exporter versions do not use the same version numbers as the core crate. Use the versions shown by that exporter's documentation. In particular, do not combine Specta v1 examples or older v2 release candidates with the current Types and format APIs.

Generated type definitions describe the expected wire data. They do not validate untrusted values at runtime unless the selected exporter provides validation code and you call it.